“The bride is beautiful” stories analyzed
Atlanta Jewish Connector, February 4, 2025
The ubiquity of “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man” stories presents a troubling example of how scholars, journalists, and filmmakers regularly dispense with accuracy and evidentiary standards when dealing with Jewish, Zionist, and Israeli history.
(This article is a follow-up to 2020’s “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man.” The tenacity of an anti-Zionist fable.)
“The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man.” The tenacity of an anti-Zionist fable
Fathom Journal, Autumn/December 2020
Some authors are unwilling to dispense with unsubstantiated stories, opting instead to put scholarly standards aside in their attempts to advance anti-Zionist arguments. One case in point is the “married to another man” fable.
(This article is a follow-up to 2012’s “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man”: Historical Fabrication and an Anti-Zionist Myth.)
Cover of Ghada Karmi’s Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine
Cover of Ingmar Karlsson’s Bruden är vacker men har redan en man: Sionisme – en ideologi vid vägs ände? (The bride is beautiful but there is already a husband: Zionism – an ideology at the end of the road?)
Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 30:3 (Spring 2012), pp. 35–61
According to a frequently repeated story, during the early years of the Zionist movement a number of European Jews were sent to Palestine to investigate its suitability as a location for a Jewish state. They reported back, the story concludes, that “the bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man“ — Palestine is an excellent land, but it belongs to others.
While its details vary with the telling, the story’s central point is often the same: already in the early years of the Zionist movement, Jews recognized that it would be unjust and immoral for them to try to claim Palestine; despite this awareness, the Zionists proceeded with their plans for Jewish statehood there; from the outset, therefore, the establishment of the state of Israel was an act of severe and willful injustice.
